Five for Friday #1: Look Ma, All Hands!

I helped to clean out a storage room at church this week that was full of old flower arrangements. I poached these red ranunculus (???ranunculii, ranunculuses???) and greenery from the trash, and reworked them to make a new arrangement for my dining room table, which I was sorely needing!! I think it turned out rather well for someone with no experience at this sort of thing!!

All Halls Are Decked!

Well, as usual, I'm a day late and a dollar short! Boomama has once again put together one of her fabulous Tours of Homes for Christmas, and I just found out about it last night around midnight-too late to participate. But I thought it would be great to share my holiday decorations, especially since none of our family ever gets to see our home decorated for Christmas! While on the tour (which I recommend you not start unless you have about two days to sit at your computer, because each home is more beautiful than the last!) I found these slide shows, so I put one together to share with everyone! Welcome to my Christmas home!

Just a few notes on the pictures:

• The 'baby food jar' tree and the Santa were made by my two fabulously talented aunts. (Maybe I do have a crafting gene somewhere in there!) My aunt Debbie made the tree by gluing empty baby food jars together on their sides in the shape of a tree. She drilled a hole in each lid and put a string of Christmas tree lights inside (one light in each hole in each lid), and filled each jar with tinsel. A ribbon gets glued around the outside of the whole thing and a star goes on top! Genius! My aunt Donna made the Santa from half of a bleach bottle, and if you want to know how I'll have to have her give you a call! I treasure these handmade decorations from my loved ones!
• The two middle stockings are the kids'; they were handmade by my great-aunt Mozelle. (Okay, so I come from a long line of crafters-I just need to get with the program, I guess, and embrace the craftiness!) She made a stocking for Nathan after he was born, and when she sent it to us she sent an extra "in case we ever needed another one." Every year that stocking would mock me when I took our three out, knowing that we would likely never have another child. But God answered the longing of our hearts and gave us Carissa, and now we, indeed, have need of that other stocking! Aunt Mo died before Carissa was ever born to us, but I believe that somehow she sees those matching stockings hanging side by side on my mantle and praises God along with me!
• A co-worker gave me the wooden reindeer family. If you look really closely, the one that looks like it's about the size of an adolescent seems to have a smirk on it's face! Trez' Realistic! I smile every year when I put these out.
• Our front door has been 'scraped and taped' in preparation for painting, so that's why each pane has a blue border-no holiday effect intended!
• The star ornament has a picture of Nathan with reindeer antlers from kindergarten in it and the wreath of handprints is my FAVORITE-he was in preschool when he made it! I am looking forward to adding ornaments that Carissa makes to our collection in the future.
• Our Advent wreath is on my cake pedestal, so that when Nathan can't come to it, it can go to him!

Our decorations are simple and full of memories, but full of love as well. I hope these pictures share our joy with you this Christmas season!

It's beginning to look alot like...

Sorry for the lapse in posting...the holiday season is here and as a mom and a pastor's wife it truly seems that the to-do list is never-ending! But I am really excited about Christmas this year! I've had our tree up for about a week now, which is the earliest I've ever put it up. The halls are finally decked and I have been in the Christmas-crafty mood for the last week too! Now, I must say that I am not a crafty person. I am the girl who wanders around in Michael's saying, "What do they use this stuff for, anyway?!" But so far I made a new wreath for the back door, cinnamon-applesauce ornaments with Nathan and a ton of bows for the church and our house. Could I possibly have picked up some kind of crafting virus last time I went in Michael's?

I think one reason I am so full of the Christmas spirit this year is that I have little two-year-old eyes to see the holiday anew with. Having my daughter around is definitely making this Christmas more fun than any other I've had so far! I stayed up until 1 a.m. decorating the tree, just so I could see her face when she came down the stairs in the morning and saw it for the first time. And I must add, it was so totally worth it!!

Also, this is the second year that we have celebrated Advent as a family. Growing up in a Pentecostal background, I had never heard of the Advent season until a couple of years ago. Chris and I felt that celebrating the anticipation of the coming Christ child, which is the focus of Advent, would be a great balance to the secular anticipation that has swallowed the holiday season. So we have an Advent wreath and candles, and each night we light the candles and have a small devotion, sing a Christmas carol, and pray together as a family. It has birthed in me a new, giddy awareness of my soul's longing for Christ and a childlike anticipation of the joy in realizing that He has come for us all! As I decorate the tree or tie bows, I feel as if my soul is singing out John's words with renewed wonder, "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us."

You see, it is so easy to celebrate and worship the miracle of Jesus' sacrifice on the cross or His triumphant resurrection, but if we are to understand the fullness of those miracles we must also fully realize the miracle of His birth. All the world was looking for a warrior to come to the rescue of the Jews, and eventually us all! But eternal, omnipotent God himself stepped through the portal of unending time and space and squeezed into the tiny, squirming form of a baby boy. He gave up his limitless authority over all of the heavens and the earth to take on helpless flesh in order to become salvation to us all. The knowledge of it transfixes me, as it must have those cold, lonely shepherds two thousand years ago, when the hosts of heaven appeared singing "Glory to God in the highest!"

So I hang lights and bake cookies and twist bows, all the while humming beautiful songs of a baby in a stable while joy steals over my very existence! Merry Christmas!